I feel like NL himself doesn't enjoy board games and that the board games aren't good segments due to the time they take. When the show runs over time he really stops caring about the game and just wants to get it over with and its understandable with night classes and other responsibilities so I feel like the best solutions is to either:

Only play a boardgame if they can actually invest the proper amount of time into it by making it the middle segment. Ideally they would not have NL as the game host either.

There was an explanation a few months ago on Reddit that it only has enough RAM while its asleep to listen for the wake word, once it hears it the rest of the device turns on. I've probably butchered the real explanation but the point is that these things have hardware limitations that prevent always listening.

I mean there was a whole South Park episode with him, he's in the opening credits of Rick and Morty, Fallout 3 and 4 both directly reference The Dunwhich Horror, GRRM has publicly cited Lovecraft as a major inspiration and has loaded Game of Thrones with major and minor Lovecraft elements and references (the Drowned God, anyone?) I think you underestimate how ubiquitous Lovecraft is in pop culture. Besides that, del Toro's aesthetic has always been a little bit Lovecraftian- little wonder that in both Hellboy and Shape there is a Deep One (fish man).

Edit: oh yea, and True Detective season 1 that everybody loved so much? Absolutely loaded with Lovecraftian themes and elements, especially the Yellow King and Carcossa. I mean the whole thing about an esoteric sex cult with horrifying rites that take place far from civilization in the heart of a savage wilderness (the sex tape that Rusty shows Woody Harrleson) is taken directly from The Call of Cthulhu and the "tale of inspector LeGrasse" part of the story where a Louisiana detective tracks his case into the depths of the bayou. Season 2, that people didn't like so much? No Lovecraftian elements.

Second edit: oh yea again, how about ever played this insignificant total flop of an unheard of indie game called Skyrim? Basically all the daedra in the game are Lovecraftian, especially Mehrunes Dagon. But yea I mean Skyrim was a mainstream failure, completely without commercial success or profitability. Completely.

Third edit: another oh yea, Event Horizon was a Lovecraftian story, and so is the Cloverfield franchise. It's like those old "how many Indians can you find" pictures, the longer you look the more Lovecraft you find all the fuck over the place in main stream entertainment.

Fourth edit: oh yea one more time, the Alien franchise that nobody ever heard of and didn't spawn a franchise of blockbusters, comic books, toys, video games, and memorabilia spanning three decades

Fifth edit: oh yea revival tour, there's also the Necronomicon, the Book of the Dead, made famous primarily by the Evil Dead franchise (which is distinctly Lovecraftian) but was created for the Cthulhu mythos by Lovecraft. (Not written by Lovecraft tho- it was written by the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred)

So please do forgive me if I think it's bullshit that Lovecraft is A) unknown, or B) commercially unviable.

I 100% guarantee you that if you know Lovecraft you can see his influences all the time, and if you don’t, then it’s either “lol hentai tentacle monsters” or “creepy cult nonsense”. I also don’t think Lovecraftian story telling gels well with the average movie-goer. Speaking as someone who describes his own tastes as leaning more towards the mainstream rather than the avant garde, Lovecraft inspired stories, especially ones that stay true to the inspiration and really go all the way, really really rub me the wrong way. I can definitely see average movie-goers like me disliking this movie if it gets a huge wide release with a lot of advertising behind it.

Just want to clarify that "the people of the UAE and Abu Dhabi" (Abu Dhabi is in the UAE, it's one of the E's) are not a people that are facing serious problems of oppression. They're one of the wealthiest populations in the world. They get scholarships to study abroad and get paid in the process. They have almost non-existent unemployment and all companies operating there must hire a certain percentage of Emiratis. They get money from the government for all sorts of things - including getting married!

Migrant workers in the UAE is probably what you meant to say. Migrant workers in the UAE, much like migrant workers anywhere in the world including first world countries, wouldn't get to elect people to represent them anyways. That's not to say migrant workers there don't live in awful conditions, but on the matter of "electing people to represent them", it's not a natural thing for migrant workers anywhere.

I worked in Norway for 3 years, and I didn't get an opportunity to elect anyone. Norwegians did, because it's their country. This was not some great injustice, I didn't feel oppressed, this was natural. I vote at home, I shouldn't get to vote in a place I'm going to work for a few years. I'm obviously likely, if given the chance to vote in Norway, to vote for people that are beneficial to me in my short stay there - these people may not be the best choice for Norway and Norwegians in the long run. It would be absurd to let me vote there. Just like it would be absurd to let migrant workers vote in the UAE.

Emirati people aren't clamoring to protest because if you live in a country where the government literally pays you to procreate, you're not likely going to hit the streets with protests signs anytime soon.

Alright just to clarify as an Emirati, we don’t get paid to “procreate” or even to get married. There is government assistance in paying dowry’s sometimes and even then the culture is moving towards just lowering the asking price of the dowry in general.

I’m still quite young but it’s my understanding that as quality of life improved in the 40 odd years since this countries formation, the dowry to get married got much higher. Not everyone in this country is rich believe it or not and many poorer Emirati men suddenly found themselves unable to pay for marriage dowries unless they took out a loan (which is actually fucking stupid) but even then they wouldn’t lower the dowry for their sisters or daughters because then people ask “so what’s wrong with her compared to every other girl?”. I’m sure economists have studied dowry prices but that could be a whole post by itself.

Afaik most younger people getting married now are moving away from large dowry’s and super expensive weddings just because starting your new life with your new wife in debt is surprisingly not a good idea.

Also pretty much every post in here about migrant workers is incorrect but tbh I’m just not bothered to argue about migrant workers for the umpteenth time on the internet. Come visit, ask the migrant workers questions yourself, it’s a nice place.

He has a Reddit account and when I saw his comment on hhh and mentioned his YouTube channel he deleted the comment. Idk if he deleted the account but it was his name with an extra letter, can't remember what it was exactly.

I was mis-remembering, it was Neonomicon that I read. I am generally averse to Lovecraftian stuff and that comic just wasn't my cup of tea I guess. Haven't read Providence or the courtyard but since they're both tied to Neonomicon I doubt I ever will.

Oh man Neonomican, I forgot that one. I personally don't agree with your assessment of League, but there's no denying he has written a lot of good. To me, he fell off though, and hard. When you have a lot of books that are both top tier and shit tier, I don't think you can be classed as the best. If you've got a lot of great stuff and some that is just average, then you'd be more likely, but not if you made total shite

I hate to make the comparison, but take someone like Tom King. At the moment, he has written three top tier books in his Trilogy, a better than average book in Grayson, and a average-great book in Batman depending on who you talk to (with Mister Miracle as well, but that isn't finished yet, it could crash and burn for all we know). At the moment, he is, quite rightly, seen as one of the best writers of the last few years, but if he wrote a bunch of shit comics? do you think he would still be seen in that high regard? now, a lot of Moore's worse works weren't at major companies, so they may just have been swept under the rug by many fans, but in this day and age? With a new rising star of a writer? Nothing would go unnoticed, and the writer would be absolutely slammed. I get the feeling that if Moore was big right now, and he made something like League, or Neonomicon, or Lost Girls, he would be totally ridiculed

I think I like League because I fell in love with the first two volumes and didn't read the definitely worse third volume and spinoffs until much later, plus I love the art.

I think the longer your career in comics the more shit tier books you're bound to have. Its kind of like in music where you've got your whole life to make your debut album and only a year or two to put out your second. Moore and Morrison and you could even expand this to guys like Bendis or any major writer, they write amazing stories and then later in their careers you realize that Moore is kind of a shock jock, Morrison is too high on his own farts with the occult nonsense, Bendis is over-reliant on Bendis-speak.

I think on a long enough timeline every writer who doesn't stop writing becomes a shitty writer or at least gets 'found out'. I'll be sad to see it happen to Tom King, I'm loving his Batman and I can't wait for MiracleMan to come out as a trade but if I'm being totally honest I think he's already had a stinker with Sheriff of Babylon (although it might just rub me the wrong way since I'm Arab).

I read Quantum and Woody from Valiant and both the Priest version and the more recent version sucked. I usually like Priest but 90's comics and specifically the story of Quantum and Woody just didn't appeal to me all.

I doubt I'll be revisiting anything Valiant anytime soon, especially because I've had a few people recommend Quantum and Woody as one of the funniest comics ever (it definitely wasn't) and generally one of the best Valiant comics series.

So I read the whole of Injustice and as far as I remember even in Injustice Year 5 Vol. 3 Did that happen in the original Injustice or some other self contained story, or has it just not made it into trades yet? I feel like I'm missing something here.

East of West is definitely style over substance. I can see how it wouldn’t hook you if you heavily appreciate plot but for me the appeal is in how cool the art and design styles are, moreso than where the plot is going.

Mine is in the mail. I’ve already read the original Mr. Miracle but this will be nice to complete the collection and it’s basically just background reading for when Tom King’s Mr. Miracle comes out in trades.

People with thicker hair and usually POC get shape ups or line ups. If you've ever seen a black guy just out of the barber shop his hair is sharp, and middle eastern dudes with bears usually get their beards trimmed in a sharp fashion too. Very normal.

I just recently finished collecting all of the Hellboy and BPRD trades, and Mignola's tone makes the whole thing still a delight to read. Mignola manages to set a tone that is dark and dire while also being heartwarming and hilarious.

Plus for a series filled with ghosts, demons, and Vampires, death is a real thing in it's world, which is refreshing. Everything that happens has consequences, some things from the early volumes are still panning out.

It's going to be a big blow to the industry when BPRD finally wraps up, because no one is really doing good action horror series anymore, especially since American Vampire went on Scott Snyder's backburner.